Just days after being sworn as 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, in a series of executive orders, is planning to revive the Dakota and Keystone XL pipelines.
Both projects were abandoned by Barack Obama a few weeks before the end of his second term, to calm the protests and to maintain environmental sustainability.
But while Trump asks the company involved in the Keystone to ‘resubmit their application,’ Consumer Watchdog points back to their report, published in 2013, to disprove Trump’s claims that the pipeline would benefit Americans.
“Keystone is not an economic benefit to Americans who will see higher gas prices and bear all the risks of the pipeline,” explained report author Judy Dugan in a press statement. “The pipeline is being built through America, but not for Americans.”
According to Consumer Watchdog’s findings, the new pipeline would increase the price at the pump 20 to 40 cents per gallon in the Midwest, with no long-term economic benefit to the U.S. economy’.
The report also warns that, should the pipeline project become a reality, there will most likely be a shortage of crude oils for America: the majority of the oil, in fact, would be sent abroad to comply with the overseas demand, with dangerous effect to the economy of the Midwest — even as far as California, Consumer Watchdog explains in the report.
“Any reduction of deliveries to Midwest refineries would crimp gasoline supply, further driving up pump prices, and Keystone XL’s backers want to move cheap oil out of the Midwest,” said Dugan. “Many major Midwest refineries have also made expensive changes to maximize their use of the tar sands oil and could not operate as efficiently using different grades of oil from other sources.”
The reason for this change in focus, from internal to external market, is due to the interests of many corporations in the pipeline, Exxon Mobile first among the others.
“Keystone XL was never about jobs for America or crude oil for America, it was about profits for ExxonMobil and others who owned stakes in the tar sands,” Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court said.
